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Adverbial connectivity in conversations of children 6 to 12*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  26 September 2008

Cheryl M. Scott
Cheryl M. Scott
Affiliation:
Oklahoma State University
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Abstract

Natural language samples of 114 children aged 6 to 12 years are analysed for instances of discourse connectivity via adverbial conjuncts and disjuncts. Conjunct use is just emerging at 6 and is limited to the encoding of a subset of possible logical relations with only one lexical item per relation (transitional now, inferential then, result so and concessive though). Developmental progress takes the form of increasing use of the same conjuncts, plus additional logical relations and an increasing repertoire of lexical items per relation. Disjunct use is rare at all ages and largely limited to really and probably. Developmental interactions between form, content and use (discourse context) are probed. The 12-year-old child falls far short of an adult rate of production but is learning a similar set of connectivity forms.

Type
Articles
Information
Journal of Child Language , Volume 11 , Issue 2 , June 1984 , pp. 423 - 452
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1984

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Footnotes

[*]

This research was undertaken while the author was on sabbatical leave as a Visiting Scholar in the Department of Linguistic Science, University of Reading, in the spring of 1982. I am indebted to David Crystal for his valuable counsel at various points in the project and to Michael Garman and Paul Fletcher for their comments on an earlier draft of the paper. I am also grateful to Robin Fawcett and Michael Perkins for their efforts in recording, transcribing and publishing the child language corpus analysed here. Address for correspondence: Department of Speech and Language Pathology and Audiology, 120 Hanner, Oklahoma State University, Stillwater, Oklahoma 74074.

References

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